THE TEMPEST & JULIE TAYMOR

Julie Taymor's THE TEMPEST, a film adapted from her own stage production of Shakespeare's play, provides a simple, beautiful, richly symbolic, clear, contemporary interpretation of this dramatic and fantastic classic. Taymor's version steers a clear path between the multiple traps of over-hammy acting or poor acting, overly mysterious or banal presentation, and simple confusion or over-interpretation, threading through with sensible and considered storytelling, modern acting, and a rich visual style that serves the film well.

It's a hard play to do, and a very hard play to film.

To be sure, the film was made on a shoestring, and in some places the bare bones are evident, notably the initial tempest. But for the most part, the film looked very good, and shooting the film in Hawaii provided a natural wild and beautiful location.

Using busy actors also reduced the amount of time available for rehearsals and in some cases made improvisation necessary. But Julie Taymor, who is one of the few true genius directors, made some of these problems into virtues.

Notably, Ariel was not available to shoot with the others in Hawaii, leading to the unique and -- mostly -- successful overlay of Ariel superimposed and added to the film separately. The nude but sexless Ariel was only slightly strange -- more for being sexless than nude.

Casting Helen Mirren as Prospera was the plan from the beginning. Changing Prospero (a man) to Prospera (for Helen) was seemless. Her performance was central and perfectly natural. The gender shift was/is a non-issue.

All the acting was very fine. This is perhaps surprising, since many actors were more or less new to Shakespeare and, as mentioned above, due to the small budget and their busy careers, rehearsal time was very limited. But when the director understands a play, actors can bring their performance into line; and one part of Taymor's genius is that she understands the story she is telling.

Another part of her genius is visual story-telling (she was known for her visual direction before she was known as a director), which is how on a small budget she succeeded in making a visually strong film.

Julie Taymor (who will be 58 next Wednesday -- born Dec 15, 1952) studied mythology and folklore in college, and then worked in puppetry. Her approach to Shakespeare (in Titus and The Tempest), both to the actors and to the visual style, seems to derive much of its force from this background.

Julie Taymor, of course, is presently in previews for Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, the most ambitious Broadway show of all time. If succesful, it will merge incredibly difficult and dangerous visual effects (quite a few injuries so far), with a mythic story.

THE TEMPEST was shown at the New York Film Festival (NYFF) and Julie Taymor appeared in several events talking about the film.


Julie Taymor
At the NYFF Press Conference
Photo by Eric Roffman

Here's an interview with Julie Taymor at the New York Film Festival Press Conference:

Here's an interview with Julie Taymor several years ago (at the time of "Across The Universe"):

Here's an interview about Spider-Man from 3 months ago with Julie Taymor, Reeve Carney and Jennifer Damiano

LINKS & EXTRA INFO...

THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by Julie Taymor

Cast:

Helen Mirren as Prospera
Felicity Jones as Miranda
Reeve Carney as Ferdinand
Alfred Molina as Stephano
Russell Brand as Trinculo
Djimon Hounsou as Caliban
Chris Cooper as Antonio
Alan Cumming as Sebastian
Tom Conti as Gonzalo
David Strathairn as King of Naples Alonzo
Ben Whishaw as Ariel

JULIE TAYMOR - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Taymor

THE TEMPEST - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1274300/

THE TEMPEST - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest_(2010_film)

SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK
Currently in previews...

SPIDER-MAN - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Turn_Off_the_Dark

SPIDER-MAN ON BROADWAY -- Official Site
http://spidermanonbroadway.marvel.com/#home

NYFF 2009

THE NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2009
SEPTEMBER 25 - OCTOBER 11

The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is always one of the highlights of the year in film. It usually previews a few of the most important films that will be competing for awards at the end of the year (unimportant films also compete for awards, but they'll not be found at NYFF) , and many films that are among the very best of the year from all over the world, and hardly seen at all except at NYFF.

(For example, last year's slate screened Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner The Class and the Academy Award-nominated films The Wrestler, Changeling, and Waltz with Bashir.)

Filmmakers and actors often visit the festival and participate in discussions on stage after the film, (and even, sometimes, casually, outside).

Arnaud Desplechin
Outside Walter Reade Theater last year
Photo by Eric Roffman
Here, above, is Arnaud Desplechin, a quintessential French Director, who made last year's A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noel) (with Catherine Denueve and Mathieu Amalric) outside the Walter Reade Theater last year.

In the many connections among the films from year to year, Amalric was in the 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon), and will appear again at the festival, this year in Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) by Alain Renais.

Pedro Almodovar will be back at the festival on closing night. Again, with a film featuring Penelope Cruz. Above: Here's a report from 2006 with Penelope Cruz talking about Almodovar.

(Note -- disclaimer!): I don't know which filmmakers or actors will actually be present this year... when I say they'll be back I only mean that they have a film in the festival).

Juliet Berto
at NYFF 1974
Photo by Eric Roffman

And Jacques Rivette (now 81... Alain Renais, by the way, is 87) will be back with 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak (36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup). Above is a picture of Juliet Berto in the Green Room at Alice Tully Hall, when she came to the festival for Rivette's Celine et Julie vont en bateau more than 30 years ago. (Berto was a co-writer of that film, and was also in Godard's masterpiece La Chinoise, which was shown recently in the 1968 retrospective by the Film Society. )

Unfortunately, getting tickets to the films is not so easy. Each film is only shown at most twice. And the festival tends to be oversubscribed. Unlike the policy at the The Public Theater, which tries to give away many of their seats free to the public, democratically (but in return for waiting on line really, really early in the morning), access to Film Society tickets are prioritized by the length of time you've been a member of the Film Society, and only after initial orders are taken do other tickets go on sale to the public.

While Alice Tully Hall was undergoing renovations, films were shown at Rose Hall. It's time to take the most oversubscribed films and show them more than twice, perhaps adding screenings at Rose or even Avery Fisher Hall (where opening and closing night films are shown). It's nice that the Film Festival is like a party for those who go every year, but it should also allow more people to participate. I would think that a full house at any of these theaters would more than pay for itself and whatever trouble it would require to schedule extra screenings. Some of the films, of course, go on to commercial screeneings after the festival. Still, I think it's more fun to see them at the festival.

If you do not have a ticket, by the way, there are frequently people who do have extra tickets that they will sell (at face price) or even give away free at the door. There usually are quite a few, so it's worth trying if there's a film you want to see. (And if you do have a ticket you're not using, by all means go to the theater and let someone else use it!)


Note: 9/16 -- It has just been announced that there will be a "Rush Line" this year with at least 50 tickets available for each screening at the Alice Tully Hall box office!

Note 10/1 -- The Festival is providing extra screenings for the most popular sold-out films!

Excellent!

Here is a summary (by the NYFF) of the festival's main event offerings. (In addition to the main event there are several sidebar events, including selections of films from China and from India.) (Note: Check the description of the last film, the Wizard of Oz retrospective, for my favorite line from these previews!)


NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2009

Opening Night: Alain Resnais' Wild Grass
Centerpiece: Lee Daniels' Precious
Closing Night: Pedro Almod�var's Broken Embraces

The 47th edition of the New York Film Festival will open with the U.S. premiere of Alain Resnais's Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) and close with Pedro Almod�var's Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos). This year's Centerpiece will be Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire.

In addition this year's festival will include two Masterworks series from China and India, Views From the Avant Garde, and special events.

The Festival returns this year to its renowned home, Alice Tully Hall, beautifully restored and renovated with superb, state-of-the-art sound and projection.

The 17-day NYFF highlights 29 films from 17 countries by celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new independent directors.


This Year's Selections:

A Film Society veteran, legendary French auteur Alain Resnais returns with Wild Grass, his 10th film selected for the New York Film Festival. His film Muriel appeared in the first New York Film Festival in 1963. And recently, Private Fears in Public Places showed at the 44th edition of the Festival in 2006.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the French New Wave and fifty years after his groundbreaking debut with Hiroshima Mon Amour, Resnais delivers a career-crowning masterpiece with Wild Grass, a delightful roundelay based on Christian Gailly's novel The Incident, about the fate-altering ripples triggered by a seemingly ordinary purse snatching. The purse belongs to Marguerite (Resnais' regular, Sabine Azema), a dentist who moonlights as an aviatrix. Its contents are retrieved by Georges (Andr� Dussollier), a married man who soon finds himself infatuated with the purse's owner, even though he hasn't actually met her yet. Add in a couple of keystone cops (hilariously played by Mathieu Amalric and Michel Vuillermoz), some dizzying aerial acrobatics, and the glorious widescreen camerawork of cinematographer Eric Gautier and Wild Grass becomes a uniquely playful meditation on coincidence and desire that suggests Resnais, at age 87, is truly in his prime.

Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, marks the first time the American director has been at the Festival. In his astonishing adaptation of Sapphire's 1996 novel, Daniels unsparingly recounts the horrific life of Clareece "Precious" Jones, an obese, barely literate 16-year-old living in late '80s Harlem who's sexually abused by both her father and mother. But Precious is not just a tale of endless abjection-it's also an exhilarating celebration of a young woman's determination to free herself from the pathologies surrounding her, guided by a teacher who senses her innate talents. Without a trace of easy, unearned sentimentality, Precious might be the most spirit-affirming movie of the year. Bringing this raw, uncompromising material to the screen, Daniels has assembled a remarkable cast: Paula Patton as Precious's devoted teacher, Mariah Carey as a tough yet compassionate welfare officer, fearless newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as Precious, and-most memorably-Mo'Nique as her monstrous mother, which won the actress a Special Jury Prize at Sundance.

Also no stranger to New York audiences, and a true NYFF favorite, Pedro Almod�var's newest, Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos), marks his eighth film in the New York Film Festival. (Seven of these have either been Opening Night, Centerpiece or Closing Night selections.) Broken Embraces tells the story of a blind screenwriter, living and working under a pseudonym, who learns of the death of a powerful industrialist, triggering a flood of memories that encompass a tale of naked ambition, forbidden love and devastating loss. Moving from Madrid sound stages to the volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands, Almod�var takes us on a candy-colored emotional roller coaster that barrels from comedy to romance to melodrama to the darker haunts of film noir-with even a salute to the "Making Of..." film along the way. Penelope Cruz has never been better, nor more ravishing, and she's ably aided by Lluis Homar (Bad Education), Blanca Portillo (Volver), and a wonderful newcomer to the Almod�var stable, Rub�n Ochandiano. The luscious cinematography is by Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros, Brokeback Mountain).

Rounding out the 2009 slate, The Film Society welcomes a group of well-established alumni back to the New York Film Festival with new features, including Marco Bellocchio (Vincere), Catherine Breillat (Bluebeard), Claire Denis (White Material), Manoel de Oliveira, (Eccentricities of a Blonde), Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon), Jacques Rivette (36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak), Todd Solondz (Life During Wartime), Lars von Trier (Antichrist) and Andrzej Wajda (Sweet Rush).

New directors to the Festival include Maren Ade (Everyone Else), Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass), Zhao Dayong (Ghost Town), Samuel Maoz (Lebanon), Raya Martin (Independencia), Jo�o Pedro Rodrigues (To Die Like A Man) and Sabu (Kanikosen).

New York Film Festival 2009
September 25 - October 11
Main Slate

OPENING NIGHT
Mathieu Amalric in
Wild Grass
Alain Resnais, France, 2009; 113m
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Sony Pictures Classics

Wild Grass / Les herbes folles
Alain Resnais, France, 2009; 113m
The venerable Alan Resnais creates an exquisite human comedy of manners, mystery and romance with some of France's - and our - favorite actors: Sabine Az�ma, Andr� Dussollier, Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Almaric. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

CENTERPIECE

Gabourey Sidibe in
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Lee Daniels, USA, 2009; 109m
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Lionsgate
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Lee Daniels, USA, 2009; 109m
Precious is sixteen and living a miserable life. But she uses all the emotional energy she possesses to turn her life around. Director Lee Daniel's audacious tale features unforgettable performances by Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. A Lionsgate release.

CLOSING NIGHT

Penelope Cruz in
Broken Embraces
Pedro Almod�var, Spain, 2009; 128m
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Sony Pictures Classics
Broken Embraces / Los abrazos rotos
Pedro Almod�var, Spain, 2009; 128m
Almod�var's newest masterwork is a candy-colored emotional roller that barrels from comedy to romance to melodrama to the darker haunts of film noir and stars his muse, Pen�lope Cruz, in a multilayered story of a man who loses his sight and the love of his life. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak / 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup
Jacques Rivette, France, 2009, 84m
The legendary Jacques Rivette returns with an elegiac look at the final days of a small-time traveling circus.

Antichrist
Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2009, 109m
Surely to be one of the year's most discussed films, Lars von Trier's latest chronicles a couple's efforts to find their love again after a tragic loss, only to unleash hidden monsters lurking in their souls. An IFC Films release.

The Art of the Steal
Don Argott, USA, 2009, 101m
Bound to be controversial, this intriguing account of the travails of the legendary Barnes collection of art masterworks and the foundation set up to protect it raises vital questions about public vs. private "ownership" of art.

Lola Creton in
Bluebeard
Catherine Breillat, France, 2009, 78m
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Pyramide Films
Bluebeard / La Barbe Bleue
Catherine Breillat, France, 2009, 78m
Two sisters reading Charles Perrault's 17th century tale of perhaps the first "serial killer" becomes a meditation on the enduring fascination with a character who has served as inspiration for countless novels, plays and films.

Crossroads of Youth / Cheongchun's Sipjaro
An Jong-hwa, Korea, 1934, 73m
The oldest surviving Korean film, this recently-rediscovered masterwork will be presented with live musical accompaniment as well as a benshi (offscreen narrator).

Eccentricities of a Blonde
Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France, 2009, 64m
One hundred years young, director Manoel de Oliveira returns with another gem: a wry, moving tale of a pure if frustrated love adapted from a novel by E�a de Queiroz.

Everyone Else / Alle Anderen
Maren Ade, Germany, 2009, 119m
The ups and downs, joys and jealousies, frustrations and fulfillments of a young couple on a summer holiday provide the premise for this brilliant meditation on modern coupling.

Ghost Town
Zhao Dayong, China, 2008, 180m
A revealing, one-of-a-kind look at China far away from the glittering urban skylines, this portrait of a contemporary rural community in China offers extraordinary insights into everything from the role of religion to gender relationships to the place of social deviants.

Hadewijch
Bruno Dumont, France, 2009, 105m
A young woman searches for an absolute experience of faith-and in the process grows increasingly distant from the world around her.

Independencia
Raya Martin, Philippines, 2009, 77m
Maverick director Raya Martin offers a kind of alternative history of the Philippines and its struggle for nationhood in this stylized tale of a mother and son hiding in the mountains after the US takeover of the islands.

InfernoPhoto Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Inferno / L'Enfer
Serge Bromberg, France, 2009, 100m
A film buff's delight, Serge Bromberg film resurrects the surviving footage of Clouzot's aborted, experimental film L'Enfer, revealing a slightly mad but beguiling project that will always remain one of cinema's great "what ifs."

Kanikosen
Sabu, Japan, 2009, 109m
Kanikosen is a highly stylized, stirring, manga-flavored update of a classic Japanese political novel, with labor unrest aboard a crab canning ship evolving into a cry of a younger generation aching to break the bonds of conformity.

Lebanon
Samuel Maoz, Israel, 2009, 92m
Debut director Samuel Maoz takes us inside an Israeli tank and the emotions of its crew during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Life During Wartime
Todd Solondz, USA, 2009, 96m
Preparing for his bar-mitzvah, a young man must deal with his divorced mother's prospective fianc� as well as rumors that his own father is not really dead.

Min Y�
Souleymane Ciss�, Mali/France, 2009, 135m
A work of startling originality, Souleymane Ciss�'s first film in over a decade insightfully and incisively chronicles the dissolution of an upper-middle class African marriage.

Mother/ Maedo
Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2009, 128m
Convinced that her son has been wrongly accused of murder, a widow throws herself body and soul into proving his innocence. Kim Hye-ja in the title role gives perhaps the performance of the year.

Ne Change Rien
Pedro Costa, France/Portugal, 2009, 103m
A shimmering valentine, Costa's latest is less a portrait than a kind of visual homage, to the artistry of actor and singer Jeanne Balibar.

Police Adjective / Politist, adj.
Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2009, 115m
Discovering a teenager with hashish, a young policeman hesitates about turning him in. But his supervisor has other ideas in this beautifully acted, provocative modern morality play. An IFC Films release.

Room and a Half / Poltory komnaty ili sentimentalnoe puteshtvie na rodinu
Andrey Khrzhanovsky, Russia, 2009, 131m
Former animator Andrey Khrzhanovsky combines scripted scenes, archival footage, several types of animation, and surrealist flights of fancy to create this stirring portrait of poet Josef Brodsky and the postwar Soviet cultural scene. A Seagull Films release.

SweetgrassIlisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, USA, 2009, 105mPhoto Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Sweetgrass
Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, USA, 2009, 105m
This breathtaking chronicle follows an ever-surprising group of modern-day cowboys as they lead an enormous herd of sheep up and then down the slopes of the Beartooth Mountains in Montana on their way to market.

Sweet Rush / Tatarak
Andrzej Wajda, Poland/France, 2009, 85m
Celebrated master Andrzej Wajda returns with a bold, experimental work that juxtaposes a story about a terminally doctor's wife rediscovering romance thanks with a heart-rending monologue written and performed by actress Krystyna Janda about the death of her husband.

To Die Like a Man / Morrer como um homen
Jo�o Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, 2009, 138m
This touching, finely-etched portrait follows Tonia, a veteran drag performer confronting younger competition and her boyfriend's demands that she undergo a sex change.

Vincere
Marco Bellocchio, Italy, 2009, 129m
Mussolini's "secret" marriage to Ida Dalser, afterwards completely denied by Il Duce, along with the son born from the relationship, becomes the springboard for this visually ravishing meditation on the fascist manipulation of history. An IFC Films release.

White Material
Claire Denis, France, 2009, 100m
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Wild Bunch
White Material
Claire Denis, France, 2009, 100m
A handful of Europeans try to make sense of-and survive-the chaos happening all around them in an African country torn apart by civil war.

The White Ribbon / Das weisse band
Michael Haneke, Austria/France, 2009, 144m
The Palme d'Or winner at this year's Cannes Film Festival, this is a starkly beautiful meditation on the consequences of violence-physical, emotional, spiritual-in a northern German town on the eve of World War I. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

The Wizard of Oz
Victor Fleming, 1939, USA, 103m
The 70th Anniversary of the timeless classic, presented in a spectacular newly-restored edition makes the film a new experience even for those who practically have it memorized. A Warner Bros. release.


This year the NYFF introduces Masterworks which will feature works from India and China.
- "Re-Inventing China: A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949-1966"
- "A Heart as Big as the World: The Films of Guru Dutt"
Both series will screen at the Walter Reade Theater.

There will also be: Special Events! and Views From the Avant Garde.

(Note: Always remember the Sponsors. Due to the strange way the world works, few artistic endeavors would ever exist without private sponsors.)

Sponsors:

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from 42BELOW, GRAFF, Stella Artois, Illy Caff�, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

The 47th Annual New York Film Festival is sponsored by HBO� Films, The New York Times, and Kodak.
HBO� and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

NYFF - THE CLASS

ABOVE
Fran�ois B�gaudeau as Fran�ois in
The Class / Entre Les Murs
Directed by Laurent Cantet, France, 2008; 128m
Photo taken by Pierre Milon, 2007
Property of Sony Pictures Classics / Film Society of Lincoln Center

BELOW
Laurent Cantet, Director
The Class / Entre Les Murs
with Richard Pe�a at the NYFF Press Conference
Photos by Eric Roffman for tattoowesley








The Class, the opening night film at the New York Film Festival, is a powerful, interesting exploration into the world of a multicultural Junior High School in France, outside the center of Paris.

As it is for children in Junior High Schools all over the world, this is a turbulent age. In France, where there are cultural conflicts amongst and between every minority and majority cultural group, it is especially stressful.

The film was made through a method I call natural adaptive improvisation. The result might be called documentary fiction. First, a class and a school were observed. Then a tentative script was created -- fictional, but based on the observed reality. Then scenes were structured and the children -- real children -- were told the outlines of what needed to happen in the scene and they improvised. Then the improvisations were refined. This gave the children the opportunity to be creatively themselves, at the same time that a larger, well crafted story was being told.

The story is simply one year in the life of a class (restricted strictly to the space within the walls of the school, as the French title, "Entre Les Murs": Between The Walls makes explicit).

Because the film's subject (teaching, learning, at the JHS level in a multicultural milieu) is at the very heart of political, educational, and social issues in France -- and everywhere -- it is a most important film.

This film seems to take no sides in any debate on any of the issues that it brings up in the mind of the viewer. It is just there, a fictional, yet very real documentary.

SOME FILM FESTIVAL INFORMATION

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Mathieu Amalric (right) as French editor Jean-Dominique Bauby
at work on ELLE magazine
Photo: Etienne George/Courtesy of Miramax Films

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, shown at the 45th New York Film Festival (NYFF) � and also to be shown at the Hamptons Film Festival (HIFF) -- is an adaptation, by the artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, of a famous French book, Le scaphandre et le papillon, written by Jean-Dominique Bauby, � the cosmopolitan editor of French ELLE, who -- after suffering a sudden stroke in his early forties -- was faced with total paralysis, except, notably, the ability to blink one eye.




Marie-Jos�e Croze as Henriette Durand,
Jean-Dominique Bauby�s speech therapist
Photo: Etienne George/Courtesy of Miramax Films

Thanks to a sympathetic therapist, he learned how to use this ability to select letters, which were strung together, laboriously one by one, to make words, then sentences and, ultimately a book describing his life� trapped in an immobile body.

It was filmed in the hospital where Bauby stayed, giving the film a strong sense of place, and an authenticity which was earned by checking the accuracy in detail of the portrayal of his therapy and the reactions of the staff and the patient. It is filmed essentially from Bauby�s point of view. The integrity of the film had made it of particular interest to health professionals.

The language of the film is French. It has a very strong feeling of being a French film (even though the director did not speak the language when he began making the picture). It also has beautiful women, and sex and romance at a distance. Schnabel, of course, is an artist, and the film has a strong, attractive visual style.


Left: Max von Sydow as Papinou
Right: Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Dominique Bauby
Photo: Etienne George/Courtesy of Miramax Films

There is a very powerful cameo by Max von Sydow as the father. And Mathieu Amalric, the actor playing Bauby, is also excellent and very interesting as well.

In the version I saw � perhaps it has been changed � there seemed to be a confusing problem in the subtitled translation of the French. For example, if the word being spelled was aime (or love), as the therapist clearly read off �a� i� m� e�,� the translation in subtitles read �l� o� v� e��

The film is in part about being trapped (also a theme of I Just Didn�t Do It, at NYFF ). It is also about the sadness that comes from having done something wrong in the past and being unable to correct it; about loneliness and the inability to make connections (also a theme of Bernard and Doris, the opening night film at HIFF); about the joy of taking note of what beauty is available; and the joy of creating a work of art and importance; and about pain and the fear of dying.

The film is a moving work of art and life.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED

Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Owen Wilson

Photo: James Hamilton

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited is the opening night film of this year's New York Film Festival (NYFF).

Wes Anderson is famous for movies about dysfunctional families. In the past, I've disliked several of his movies. His characters were too odd and, for me, not funny.

The Darjeeling Limited will infuriate some, bore others. I liked it, almost all of it, all the way through.

Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman play deeply disturbed brothers. Owen (seemingly the oldest) has gotten his brothers to join him on his version of a spiritual quest to India. Anjelica Huston, in a strong cameo performance, plays their mother.

I don't know how people who have a serious love for India, or have been on a sincere quest for self-healing will feel about this film; it was constructed as a somewhat screwy comedy about people who seem to be so self-absorbed (but not self-aware) that they are completely oblivious to most (but not all!) the reality of their environment as it is perceived by the people who actually live there, written by people to whom that environment is almost completely alien.

The plotting is casual, with the motivation for the brothers' journey sometimes as unfocused as the brothers' own mode of thought.

Owen's character: disturbed, drug swilling, and suicidal bears a freaky resemblance to what the public (or at least this member of the public) knows (or thinks he has heard) of Owen through the media. The press conference with the director and members of the cast -- if they get asked about these parallels and they answer -- could be quite freaky as well.

The exotic locations make for visually splendor; the quirky behavior of the brothers -- and others they meet -- is genuinely comic. The film is also at moments sad, sometimes heartless, frequently surprising, occasionally exciting, and often insightful. It can ignite conversations about healing, family dynamics, self-awareness, and the causes and cures (if any) of dysfunctional behavior.

Unfortunately, there is one moment toward the end, when the film seems to adapt a Hollywood moment (and everyone seems to "grow" -- like they teach in high school English), which is out of character with the rest of the film.

The main feature is preceded by a short, a kind of prequel to the movie, with behavior that is enigmatic, kind of fascinating, and seemingly more serious than the film that follows.

This is a fine choice for opening night. It is exotic, American and yet alien, well constructed and beautifully shot, imaginatively written, acted, and directed, yet sometimes too much in search of the next part of the story, thoughtful, even thought provoking, emotional, and possibly appreciated most by a somewhat specialized audience. It is, therefore, perhaps, an ironic, self-referential introduction to a film festival that sometimes is just the same.

NYFF PROGRAM 2007

THE DARJEELING LIMITED

The 45th annual New York Film Festival (Sep 28 - Oct 4) will be an extremely rich and interesting event.

The Opening Night film will be The Darjeeling Limited, directed by Wes Anderson, set in India, and starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

The Centerpiece Film will be Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, Josh Brolin, and Kelly MacDonald.

Closing Night will feature the animated Persepolis, a coming of age story based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel about her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, with voices including Catherine Deneuve and Danielle Darrieux.

FOUR MONTHS THREE WEEKS AND TWO DAYS

The festival will also include screenings of a new film by Sidney Lumet (his first appearance at the festival since Fail-Safe 43 years ago), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei; a new "definitive" director's cut of Blade Runner, celebrating its 25th anniversary; and 4 Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, the winner of this year's Palme D'Or at Cannes by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.

This year is unusually rich in American films. In addition to the films already mentioned, Brian De Palma will be making his NYFF debut with Redacted, about the Iraq war. Noah Baumbach will show Margot At The Wedding, a follow-up to The Squid and The Whale with Nicole Kidman as Jennifer Jason Leigh's sister, and Jack Black as Jennifer's "underwhelming" fiance. Gus Van Sant is presenting Paranoid Park, a Cannes special prize winner. Todd Haynes is showing a film about Bob Dylan; and Ira Sach's melodrama, Married Life, with Pierce Brosnan, marks his first NYFF appearance, as does John Landis' documentary, Mr Warmth, The Don Rickles Project. And more: documentaries, avant-garde, and retrospective American films.

There will also be special sidebar events, including a gallery of informal, autographed photos of stars and celebrities, screening of three music documentaries, a set of films by Brazilian Cinema Nova director Joaquim Pedro De Andrade, Views from the Avant-Garde and films from Cathay Studios. There will also be a gala black-tie evening celebrating the films of New Line Cinema, (with ticket prices starting at $2,500) to benefit the In Motion Capital building campaign for the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

Tickets will be available to the public beninnging next Sunday. (Note: Because Alice Tully Hall is undergoing renovation, the festival this year will be centered at the Rose Jazz Center.)

NYFF 2006 was not only a terrific event, it was also the kickoff for many of the year's most important films (see this earlier post), including The Queen, Pan's Labyrinth, and Volver. This year's festival promises to be at least equally important, exciting, and just plain fun.

NYFF 2007

The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC - pronounced FIZ'lc) has announced the selection committee for the 2007 New York Film Festival.

Joining Richard Pena, Chairman, Kent Jones, and Lisa Schwarzbaum (film critic at Entertainment Weekly), will be Scott Foundas (film editor and chief film critic at L. A. Weekly) and J Hoberman (senior film critic at The Village Voice, adjunct professor of cinema at Cooper Union, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University).

The 2007, 45th New York Film Festival will run from September 28, 2007 to Ocober 4. It will be held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, instead of Alice Tully Hall, which is being renovated.

The NYFF Sidebar, held at the Walter Reade Theater, will honor Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, part of Brazil's Cinema Novo movement in the 50's & 60's.

Application forms, and complete rules, for submissions to the New York Film Festival are now available. The deadline for submissions is 5pm on July 13, 2007.

Some highlights of the rules are:

• Anyone may submit a film.
• The standard is very high (for example, last year "The Queen," and "Pan's Labyrinth" were among the films shown) .
• Films may be submitted either to the main festival or to Views From The Avant- Garde, but not both.
• Final version of the film must be in either 35 mm or HD Cam. If not in English, it must have English subtitles. (The version submitted with the application should best be on VHS or DVD, but there are other possibilities.)
• Opening and Closing Nights are North American Premieres; all other films are New York Premieres.